PayPal and the Death of the Cash Register

By owenl | Yahoo Small Business

Paypal has a pretty exciting program this Summer for small businesses – yes, that Paypal. Basically they are hoping to really jump on the post-cash-register movement that has slowly been gaining ground. And by jump on we mean with both feet. Hard. If you run a small business and use an old-school cash register they want to convince you to move to their modern payment and inventory system. And to convince you they’ve started a Cash for Registers program that has some great benefits if you are one of the first 10,000 to try it. Starting on July 9, 2013, PayPal will waive transaction fees for up to $20,000 worth of transactions each month through the end of January 2014 if you upgrade to either PayPal Here or a pre-integrated partner solution and spend more than $450 on eligible hardware. You’ll save on transaction feed for swiped credit card, debit card and PayPal payments (both PayPal app mobile payments and PayPal payment card payments) made through the solution you choose (but note that this excludes keyed-in and scanned transactions). TO find out more and apply, head to www.cashforregisters.com and sign up before September 30th (or before 10,000 others beat you to it).

So why do this? There is a fair bit of evidence that using tablet devices and services like PayPal Here can really smooth out and speed up ordering and payment and can also help keep a tighter control on inventory – in fact anecdotally it is improved operating efficiency that is the real benefit. The transaction fee savings you’ll get from this program are just a bonus.

Of course every business differs. Do some real research and think about how the solution will fit into your business – but do your evaluation quickly.